Notre Dame Law Review Volume 95 Issue 5 Article 3 6-19-2020 A Survivor's Perspective: Federal Judicial Selection from George Bush to Donald Trump Leslie H. Southwick Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr Part of the Courts Commons, Judges Commons, and the President/Executive Department Commons Recommended Citation 95 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1847 (2020). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Notre Dame Law Review at NDLScholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Notre Dame Law Review by an authorized editor of NDLScholarship. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. \\jciprod01\productn\N\NDL\95-5\NDL503.txt unknown Seq: 1 10-JUN-20 15:01 A SURVIVOR’S PERSPECTIVE: FEDERAL JUDICIAL SELECTION FROM GEORGE BUSH TO DONALD TRUMP Leslie H. Southwick* INTRODUCTION Where are we, and how did we get here? Those are not bad questions for seeking a way out of any troubled situa- tion, or for that matter, remaining in a good one. Over recent decades, fed- eral judicial selection controversies are worsening in their frequency and intensity. They distort all three branches of government. My particular con- cern is with federal judicial selection for judgeships below the Olympian heights of those on the United States Supreme Court, namely, the judges on the twelve regional circuit courts of appeals and the ninety-four district courts. The depth of partisan acrimony over judicial confirmations has placed us in the infernal regions, and we seem to be continuing our descent.